In a significant decision affecting those in temporary government roles, the FWC has found a Federal department failed to recognise it was dismissing a "non-ongoing" employee when it informed him that repeated instances of disrespectful behaviour meant he would not be offered further work.
The chair of a body corporate has been issued with an anti-bullying order after the FWC found his regular out-of-hours emails to the residential complex's caretaker-manager posed a risk to her health and safety.
The FWC has given short shrift to union applications for a protected action ballot at Kimberly-Clark Australia, finding a cancelled meeting and a week's delay in securing a new date cannot be construed as being obstructive.
The FWO has launched a challenge to last month's Federal Court order for the MUA to pay a $38,000 fine for a single contravention of the prohibition on unlawful strikes, when the watchdog was seeking $3.6 million for what it says was more than 500 breaches during industrial action against stevedore Hutchison Ports.
The FWO has failed in its bid to hold the former director of a national grower's association accessorially liable for a labour hire company's admitted underpayment of pickers working on his farm, with the Federal Court finding it could not prove he knew about the contracts involved.
In a significant decision on out-of-hours conduct, the FWC has ruled that ALDI justifiably dismissed a storeperson for throwing a full beer glass over the heads of colleagues at an official company Christmas party.
Unions will next week consider pushing for stronger remedies for unfair dismissal by adopting measures such as removing the $73,000 compensation limit, enabling employees to pursue more than their lost income and empowering them to seek penalties against employers.
Protected action should be available to workers without the need for a secret ballot, according to the draft IR policy to be put to the ACTU's triennial Congress next week.
